Who's Re-Loading 9mm Major?

[Brandon Breeze]

I've shot Open a decade ago using exclusively WAC out of a CK Arms Thunder. I chose WAC because I didn't have VV money back then and is very economical.

124gr Precision Delta 124JHP
7.0gr AutoComp
1.165 OAL
Winchester Small Rifle Primer
Mixed Brass

Watch out for stepped brass or its game over. If I feel the primer 'loose' while seating, its tossed out. This yields me:

ave: 1414fps
std dev: 9.2
spread: 34
pf: 175.1

YMMV. This was for my Open, I'm sure it's gonna different for yours. With 20 years experience reloading, I'm pretty sure you know a chrono is essential loading major. I chose 175pf because it felt best for recoil, comp efficiency, plus buffer for chrono stages taking into account temperature and altitude changes from different matches across the country. Start with a lower charge weight and build your way up.

Appreciate the info!

Seems like most folks think mixed brass is extra dangerous in this space.

Any ideas how many rounds you shot in this configuration, and blow outs, failures or other problems along the way?

 

[balmo]

Appreciate the info!

Seems like most folks think mixed brass is extra dangerous in this space.

Any ideas how many rounds you shot in this configuration, and blow outs, failures or other problems along the way?

7450 rounds

No blowouts, case separation, etc. After a wet tumble, I individually inspect each case and throw away stepped brass. Of course aluminum and steel brass are tossed as well.

 

[exnds]

Several years ago Infinity would only offer Open guns in 38 super. They now offer 9 major but only because they made major improvements to handle the extreme pressures. These include 2 square v ports, 4340 steel for the slides, and titanium compensators. I don’t like a polymer framed single port 2011’s long term survival chances.

 

[GeeQ87]

Then I’ll move this to reloading since this doesn’t belong in competition.

Major scoring only helps with Charlie’s and Deltas but that only really matters when you’re farther along.

Your premise is like saying you want to drive a Porsche in a F1 race with Chinese tires. You also shouldn’t be mixing head stamps for 9 major with range brass.

This right here. Took me back to the days where you I can get some cheap linglongs for the race car. Learned my lessons lol

 

[Brandon Breeze]

7450 rounds

No blowouts, case separation, etc. After a wet tumble, I individually inspect each case and throw away stepped brass. Of course aluminum and steel brass are tossed as well.

I appreciate the info, most that have chimed in seem to treat the 9mm Major like the boogey man.

Once I hear back from TTI about their thoughts on 9mm Major I'll know how I want to proceed. I had assumed a recoil spring weight increase was likely going to be a recommendation.

Several years ago Infinity would only offer Open guns in 38 super. They now offer 9 major but only because they made major improvements to handle the extreme pressures. These include 2 square v ports, 4340 steel for the slides, and titanium compensators. I don’t like a polymer framed single port 2011’s long term survival chances.

The Sand Viper has a steel frame, polymer grip. They also now make a more rigid composite grip, and Icarus offers an aluminum grip. There are plenty of full polymer frame pistols in Major calibers already, why would a polymer grip 2011 be different?

 

[Jon F]

Here’s my recipe for an OG Limcat with 5-port comp and 3 barrel poppel holes. It puts out 175PF.

124gr precision delta jhp
7.0gr Winchester autocomp
Federal small rifle primer
1.160” oal

 

[Jon F]

I thought about loading 9mm major for my DWX as I really wanted to shoot it in USPSA and Limited also uses Major scoring, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the wear on the gun. As I told you Sunday I think I’ll just mill it for an optic so I can run it in LO which uses Minor scoring, but unfortunately you don’t have that option. Sucks that TTI wouldn’t sell you a solid barrel, that’s odd as I heard they are good to us in CA about SSE etc so I would’ve thought they would accommodate.

If you don’t care about the wear, I would be extra careful and use sorted brass… if that 5gal bucket is at least 20-30+% one manufacturer that is still a decent amount of brass and I would sort those out and at least start off with the same headstamp just for consistency and a bit of extra caution. I also would spend the little extra $ for 147gr and take advantage of the weight advantage in the force equation, as I’m sure you’re aware velocity is squared while mass isn’t so you get better PF with less recoil from prioritizing weight first and can run lower pressures for that extra level of safety. You’re not doing this mainly for $ savings I gather, so might as well do it optimally.

You know I’m new and don’t have direct experience loading 9mm major so I’m no help with specifics.

9major is restricted to Open only. Limited major has to be .40 or higher.

 

[ikeo1]

I appreciate the info, most that have chimed in seem to treat the 9mm Major like the boogey man.

I think you’re not really understanding what we’re saying. The advice is you’re focusing on the wrong area of the sport for the improvement. Theres a reason a lot of people don’t use sand vipers or 9 major. You’re new to the sport and typically consistency and training are the focus. You’re adding in things that makes less of a difference until you’re farther a long. Also factor equipment wear, maintenance costs is another thing. We treat 9major as a special case because it’s not common.

Let’s just hope you get why we’re saying what we’re saying. From the beginning, I asked if it was for content sure, but if it’s just for an advantage you have lower hanging fruit in 80-90% of your game This is really for later in your shooter journey or you shoot open and just focus on those fundamentals and work opposite

 

[weaverftw]

9major is restricted to Open only. Limited major has to be .40 or higher.

Huh good to know… some of the rules they’ve landed on are odd… like why major scoring in Limited but minor scoring in LO… very confusing. Thanks for clarifying

 

[Deleted member 16735]

Huh good to know… some of the rules they’ve landed on are odd… like why major scoring in Limited but minor scoring in LO… very confusing. Thanks for clarifying

it's basically because they almost never take away division criteria once it's established but when they make a new division they can make it however they want. The whole idea of Major vs Minor was from IPSC in the 70s when there was really just single stack and 45 acp and 9mm, none of these other cartridges including 40 were even invented but they had to differentiate the two. Limited has been around for a long time and even though it's like 3% of the total number of USPSA shooters, almost all of them shoot major so if you cut it out the 100 guys still shooting it would be sad. But LO is brand new so when faced with the choice, no one actually wants to shoot major anymore so they designed it around the guns that people actually want to shoot which is single action 9mm 2011 style pistols. But it's actually dumb because the only reason people didn't have a division for that is that long ago, Production had to be different than Single Stack and the key differentiation is the action. So Carry Optics being an offshoot of Production didn't include Single Action guns. There isn't actually a performance reason, Carry Optics and Limited Optics classifiers are scored essentially the same with LO being 0.1 HF higher on all of them that I have looked at, to the point where I almost suspect that they just arbitrarily assigned the threshold for LO 0.1 higher because if it were the same then whey would LO even exist? But it's a good question, why does it exist? It exists not because it's a good division based on a set of meaninful criteria but really because of internal politics. The divisions are a mess and desperately need to be cleaned up but no one ever will. You could easily include divisions for every boomer and zoomer to use the guns they already have but are instead based on the criteria that makes meaninful competition. The best evidence of how dumb they are is this thread, like people are willing to ignore pressure limits and potentially hurt themself or others to potentially score a few more points. Instead, there should be a division for 9mm comped guns so that people can be safe. If the way minor vs major is scored make shooting major inherently higher scoring then then fudge factor isn't really accurate and you are arbitrarily pushing people into shooting major. If you made an open minor division no one would shoot open major. Meanwhile there's a huge market for people shooting a 9mm gun with a single port comp or an island barrel, those guns are wayyyy more popular and are even carried by the general public. And they are the meta in multigun. so yeah, it's confusing.

 

[Brandon Breeze]

I think you’re not really understanding what we’re saying. The advice is you’re focusing on the wrong area of the sport for the improvement. Theres a reason a lot of people don’t use sand vipers or 9 major. You’re new to the sport and typically consistency and training are the focus. You’re adding in things that makes less of a difference until you’re farther a long. Also factor equipment wear, maintenance costs is another thing. We treat 9major as a special case because it’s not common.

Let’s just hope you get why we’re saying what we’re saying. From the beginning, I asked if it was for content sure, but if it’s just for an advantage you have lower hanging fruit in 80-90% of your game This is really for later in your shooter journey or you shoot open and just focus on those fundamentals and work opposite

I appreciate and understand exactly what you're saying and why, but you're answering questions that I didn't ask.

I completely agree that movement, consistency, transitions, stage planning, etc. are where the biggest gains in my actual shooting ability will come from right now. At no point did I say or imply that 9 Major would somehow substitute for improving skill. The plan would be to continue working on both simultaneously, assuming the tradeoffs make sense.

Where I think we differ is that I’m looking at 9mm Major from a scoring perspective rather than a skill-development perspective.

Similar to using a 170mm magazine to reduce reloads, it may not directly improve shooting fundamentals, but it can still improve stage performance and hit factor. I still fully intend to focus on fundamentals regardless of whether I’m shooting Minor or Major.

More points for the exact same C and D hits is still objectively beneficial during match scoring and classifiers, even if it doesn’t improve my underlying shooting ability. Those are two separate discussions.

Since I’m already committed to shooting the SV in Open, I don’t see much downside in at least exploring whether Major PF is worthwhile in the platform.

Ideally I’d run the gun in LO with a non-compensated barrel, but TTI apparently does not offer one as it was a limited edition. Unless someone eventually develops a comp plug solution (which I may look into), Open is where the gun lives.

I did hear back from TTI:

“It can and will cycle 9mm Major, however please be advised this will prematurely wear the gun down. If doing so, some shooters have kept it stock with no issues, others have switched over to 9lb recoil springs.”

I followed up asking about expected wear and round-count implications, because obviously there’s a point where the additional wear may not justify the experiment on a gun this expensive.

 

[Brandon Breeze]

it's basically because they almost never take away division criteria once it's established but when they make a new division they can make it however they want. The whole idea of Major vs Minor was from IPSC in the 70s when there was really just single stack and 45 acp and 9mm, none of these other cartridges including 40 were even invented but they had to differentiate the two. Limited has been around for a long time and even though it's like 3% of the total number of USPSA shooters, almost all of them shoot major so if you cut it out the 100 guys still shooting it would be sad. But LO is brand new so when faced with the choice, no one actually wants to shoot major anymore so they designed it around the guns that people actually want to shoot which is single action 9mm 2011 style pistols. But it's actually dumb because the only reason people didn't have a division for that is that long ago, Production had to be different than Single Stack and the key differentiation is the action. So Carry Optics being an offshoot of Production didn't include Single Action guns. There isn't actually a performance reason, Carry Optics and Limited Optics classifiers are scored essentially the same with LO being 0.1 HF higher on all of them that I have looked at, to the point where I almost suspect that they just arbitrarily assigned the threshold for LO 0.1 higher because if it were the same then whey would LO even exist? But it's a good question, why does it exist? It exists not because it's a good division based on a set of meaninful criteria but really because of internal politics. The divisions are a mess and desperately need to be cleaned up but no one ever will. You could easily include divisions for every boomer and zoomer to use the guns they already have but are instead based on the criteria that makes meaninful competition. The best evidence of how dumb they are is this thread, like people are willing to ignore pressure limits and potentially hurt themself or others to potentially score a few more points. Instead, there should be a division for 9mm comped guns so that people can be safe. If the way minor vs major is scored make shooting major inherently higher scoring then then fudge factor isn't really accurate and you are arbitrarily pushing people into shooting major. If you made an open minor division no one would shoot open major. Meanwhile there's a huge market for people shooting a 9mm gun with a single port comp or an island barrel, those guns are wayyyy more popular and are even carried by the general public. And they are the meta in multigun. so yeah, it's confusing.

Definitely agree. Every single one of my carry type pistols has ports or a comp at this point, so even my Glock 43, with 6 round magazine would have to be shot in open. Sure, I could swap back to the OEM barrel, but that would not be how I carry it.

There are a ton of divisions already, so I'd hate to advocate for more, but comps/ports on carry guns are incredibly popular at the moment. I'd love to bring my Glocks to a match, but shooting them in open makes even less sense than what I'm already doing with shooting the Sand Viper in Open.

 

[exnds]

I appreciate and understand exactly what you're saying and why, but you're answering questions that I didn't ask.

I completely agree that movement, consistency, transitions, stage planning, etc. are where the biggest gains in my actual shooting ability will come from right now. At no point did I say or imply that 9 Major would somehow substitute for improving skill. The plan would be to continue working on both simultaneously, assuming the tradeoffs make sense.

Where I think we differ is that I’m looking at 9mm Major from a scoring perspective rather than a skill-development perspective.

Similar to using a 170mm magazine to reduce reloads, it may not directly improve shooting fundamentals, but it can still improve stage performance and hit factor. I still fully intend to focus on fundamentals regardless of whether I’m shooting Minor or Major.

More points for the exact same C and D hits is still objectively beneficial during match scoring and classifiers, even if it doesn’t improve my underlying shooting ability. Those are two separate discussions.

Since I’m already committed to shooting the SV in Open, I don’t see much downside in at least exploring whether Major PF is worthwhile in the platform.

Ideally I’d run the gun in LO with a non-compensated barrel, but TTI apparently does not offer one as it was a limited edition. Unless someone eventually develops a comp plug solution (which I may look into), Open is where the gun lives.

I did hear back from TTI:



I followed up asking about expected wear and round-count implications, because obviously there’s a point where the additional wear may not justify the experiment on a gun this expensive.

I have a STI DVC Steel which is nearly identical to the full STI DVC Open, just shorter with one less comp port. Supposedly it can handle 9 major with a recoil spring change. If any open minor gun can handle 9 major, it’s this one. But with many reports of cracked slides on the DVC Open, the thought of testing it never even crossed my mind.

 

[ikeo1]

Otherwise you’re giving your SV unecessary wear and really expensive ammo for being new

Also factor equipment wear, maintenance costs is another thing.

I appreciate and understand exactly what you're saying and why, but you're answering questions that I didn't ask.

Ideally I’d run the gun in LO with a non-compensated barrel, but TTI apparently does not offer one as it was a limited edition. Unless someone eventually develops a comp plug solution (which I may look into), Open is where the gun lives.

I did hear back from TTI:


I followed up asking about expected wear and round-count implications, because obviously there’s a point where the additional wear may not justify the experiment on a gun this expensive.

I think it's better you just hear it from TTI. 9 major is not the boogey man, if you had the right firearm, i wouldn't really say anything. Seeing how you posted in competition, i was offering from a competition equipment perspective. My apologies for offering advice for a better competition experience vs more points to your reloading question.

 

[Deleted member 16735]

Definitely agree. Every single one of my carry type pistols has ports or a comp at this point, so even my Glock 43, with 6 round magazine would have to be shot in open. Sure, I could swap back to the OEM barrel, but that would not be how I carry it.

There are a ton of divisions already, so I'd hate to advocate for more, but comps/ports on carry guns are incredibly popular at the moment. I'd love to bring my Glocks to a match, but shooting them in open makes even less sense than what I'm already doing with shooting the Sand Viper in Open.

Yeah I mean it's only gonna be a ton of divisions if they don't consodate a bunch of them that no one even shoots. But a carry gun division should be 30 oz and under, then you can have ported carry. Then limited could be any heavier pistol plus magwell with no ports, them you could have ported limited. Then any gun with a port/comp with more than one hole and a frame mounted optic is open. Save people from themselves and just get rid of major scoring. If they want to shoot it go ahead but it would be even less popular than single stack.

 

[ikeo1]

Yeah I mean it's only gonna be a ton of divisions if they don't consodate a bunch of them that no one even shoots. But a carry gun division should be 30 oz and under, then you can have ported carry. Then limited could be any heavier pistol plus magwell with no ports, them you could have ported limited. Then any gun with a port/comp with more than one hole and a frame mounted optic is open. Save people from themselves and just get rid of major scoring. If they want to shoot it go ahead but it would be even less popular than single stack.

LO with a comp is enough.. That would make the most sense.. 3 divisions and maybe a CCW division with a weight limit.

 

[Deleted member 16735]

LO with a comp is enough.. That would make the most sense.. 3 divisions and maybe a CCW division with a weight limit.

Id actually be interested to see scores side by side for ported vs non ported guns under whatever weight limit say 28 oz to include every actual carry gun, it could be close enough to just let people shoot what they want.

 

[ikeo1]

Id actually be interested to see scores side by side for ported vs non ported guns under whatever weight limit say 28 oz to include every actual carry gun, it could be close enough to just let people shoot what they want.

The port definitely helps, but that's not usually the limiting factor. I think in a CCW division it would make sense to allow it but like production rules. Limited mods and mag size limits. When we ran ccw matches. So many people found out the realities of their rig. It's not really for scoring it's to test the practicality of the setup. Number one issue was reloads so many people found how they think they'll reload doesn't actually work well under time pressure let alone the real deal

 

[Deleted member 16735]

The port definitely helps, but that's not usually the limiting factor. I think in a CCW division it would make sense to allow it but like production rules. Limited mods and mag size limits. When we ran ccw matches. So many people found out the realities of their rig. It's not really for scoring it's to test the practicality of the setup. Number one issue was reloads so many people found how they think they'll reload doesn't actually work well under time pressure let alone the real deal

Yeah no external sight block comps and 15 round limit. For that matter get rid of magazine size limits and just have round limits so that no one has to buy those janky 3d printed MBX followers to try to squeeze another round or two of capacity. Now im getting carried away haha

 

[Brandon Breeze]

I think it's better you just hear it from TTI. 9 major is not the boogey man, if you had the right firearm, i wouldn't really say anything. Seeing how you posted in competition, i was offering from a competition equipment perspective. My apologies for offering advice for a better competition experience vs more points to your reloading question.

I put the post in Competition because 9mm Major is such a niche competition-oriented topic that I figured the odds of finding people with firsthand experience would be much higher there than in the Reloading section.

And to be clear, I do appreciate the advice regarding USPSA fundamentals and areas for improvement. Being new to the sport, I know there’s a massive amount for me to learn and improve on.

My main point throughout this thread was simply that I was specifically looking at 9 Major from a scoring/equipment perspective rather than a training shortcut or substitute for fundamentals.

I had already weighed many of the pros/cons before posting, which is why I was mainly hoping to hear from people with firsthand experience loading and running it. So that I could see first hand experiences. The information across the web is not exactly straightforward.

As for TTI, I suspect most of their response is naturally going to lean toward CYA territory, which is understandable.

Their response:

“Regarding wear and tear, I would say approximately 200%. It's just beating up a very well tuned gun.”

That’s actually the part I’m most interested in understanding realistically.

If the expected service life of the frame/slide is something like 100k rounds and 9 Major hypothetically cuts that in half, that’s probably still acceptable for the amount I realistically shoot.

What would concern me more is if Major dramatically shortened the lifespan of non-consumable (slide/frame/grip etc.) or semi-consumable parts like the extractor, ejector, locking surfaces, firing pin system, etc. into very low round-count territory.